Trivial Little Things
by The Eclectic Bookworm
Summary: AU. Oneshot. Neville and Sirius share a conversation after the events of the Ministry. Written for the Platonic Relationships Competition on HPFC.


**This was written for the Platonic Relationships Competition.**

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><p>Neville Longbottom watches from the sidelines, mopping his bloody nose, as Sirius falls backwards through the veil-<p>

Only to be grabbed by his arm halfway through it.

Bellatrix Lestrange leers at her cousin. "I don't find that as satisfying as killing you myself, cousin. So why don't you just give in now, hmm? _Crucio!"_

Neville, eyes wide, stares in horror as Sirius Black, notorious criminal, is tortured by his own Death Eater friend-

Something is off here. Bellatrix might be evil, but not so stupid as to go against the Dark Lord's right-hand man.

Maybe his right-hand man isn't Sirius after all.

He glances towards Harry, who's struggling against Lupin.

"You can't! She'll kill you, Harry-" shouts Remus, and Neville sees that holding Harry back is preventing the ex-teacher from fighting Bellatrix-

Neville realizes then what he will have to do.

"Expelliarmus!"

Bellatrix's wand twitches in her hand. Neville's shattered wand isn't strong enough to do more. However, this gives Remus the opportunity to perform an actually working Disarming Spell and Sirius gives a strangled gasp as the immense pain vanishes.

Neville has never seen the Cruciatus Curse used on a human before this. He hurries tentatively towards the probably-not-a-mass-murderer, extends a hand. "Are you all right?"

Sirius Black takes his hand, wincing slightly. "Thank you." He doesn't need to say what for.

Bellatrix then grabs him, trying to use brute force, but her grip slackens as Nymphadora Tonks (whoops, Tonks, Neville has only known her for about five minutes and she seems to hate her first name) shoots a Stunning Spell that hits its mark.

Unfortunately, it also hits Neville.

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><p>Sirius carries the pale, round-faced boy to Hogwarts, unsure of why he is so familiar. He feels horrible that he caused the injury of another. Yes, his name is cleared, but an innocent child has been hurt.<p>

Tonks is convinced that it is her fault if the boy is seriously hurt, but he knows otherwise.

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><p>Neville awakens in the hospital wing with one hell of a headache.<p>

He groans and turns over slightly, hoping it might help. But it doesn't, not at all, and he sighs reluctantly.

"You're feeling better, aren't you?" Luna Lovegood's voice is apprehensive, and for the first time since he's met her it's a little shaky. Understandable. They aren't going out or anything, he's always a little awkward around her, but she's a great girl and he told her so, so they're pretty close now.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he replies very softly. "Bloody _hell, _my head hurts."

"Yes, Bellatrix fell on top of you and gave you a concussion." She still sounds as airy-fairy as usual, but again he detects the shakiness and now some relief.

He swears. "So I'm stuck here?"

Luna flinches slightly at the curse word. "No, you're stuck here because Macnair cursed you when you were lying there and you need to stay here for awhile."

Neville bites back yet another word that his grandmother wouldn't approve of. It doesn't matter to _him _really, but he can tell that it does to Luna. Her face is still a little twisted from his last choice word.

They talk for awhile, but she has to leave eventually and he is left to his thoughts.

He is half-asleep when Sirius Black comes in.

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><p>"Hi, Neville." His voice is rough and tired. Neville gets the distinct feeling that this was not the first time he has been tortured. "I figured it out, I guess. Who you are. Frank's kid, God bless him."<p>

He speaks in clipped, short sentences. It's instantly obvious to Neville that Sirius has visited him before, and talked to him many times when he was asleep. The familiarity, the openness, makes him certain of that.

He opens his eyes, stares at the man across from him with curiosity.

Sirius jumps slightly, then mumbles, "Did you hear everything from these few days?"

"Just what you were saying now," Neville replies truthfully, sitting up, keeping the blanket piled over his legs and a good amount of his torso. "Are you any better?"

"Better?" The question surprises Sirius. "No one's asked. They asked after the torture but when I said I was they didn't push it."

There is some new, raw pain in his eyes. Neville notices the look of utter despair, and decides tactfully to ask about it. Sirius seems trapped, unable to say it without being prodded.

"Mr. Black… Sirius...there's something bothering you."

It is not a question, it's a statement of fact that Sirius replies to with a torrent of words.

He'd fallen halfway through the veil, was certain that he was dead, and there they were.

Lily and James Potter, smiling softly at him. James had cried "Pads!" and Lily had stretched out a hand to him, and Sirius had felt joy like nothing before until suddenly-

They dissolved into shadow, their voices murmurs and whispers, no longer intelligible. And Sirius was yanked away from his suddenly weirdly distorted friends, the images of them halfway between shadow and human the part he remembered the most. For one brief second, the world of death had been revealed. Now, however, he was struggling to remember.

Neville sighs. "I honestly don't know what to say. I mean, my parents aren't dead, no one I know has died, I haven't seen anyone die, and I have no idea at all how to help you."

Sirius, to his surprise, gives him a twisted smile. "At least you're honest, Neville."

"Yeah, well, that's not going to help if you're miserable, Sirius." He isn't sure why he's on a first-name basis with this man he'd known for all of one minute.

"I just...I thought I could see them for a moment, and then they were gone, and I want to be with them, but I can't, and-"

Neville turns his head to stare at the ceiling awkwardly. "Your name is cleared, though, isn't that good?"

"Excellent," replies Sirius bitterly. "Yeah, that's great. I just love being innocent and free after fourteen years of hell."

"What would you like me to say?" snaps Neville indignantly, forgetting that he's talking to someone struggling with emotions. "Oh, _well done man that I barely know, so glad you saw two dead people, sorry it's upsetting you, pass the sugar_?"

Sirius gives a sharp bark of a laugh. "At least you're honest, Neville," he echoes, and then, "It's my fault they died."

Neville frowns, pauses, replies. "I don't think so," he says gently. "I think you placed your trust in the most natural person, and I think I would've done the same. To be honest, I think that I would have been the weak one. I think I would have been the mole in those circumstances." He sighs, sits up to look at Sirius sadly. "I'm not brave. I just do what's necessary."

Sirius shakes his head slightly as if he is a wet dog shaking off water. "You are the son of-"

"But that's just it, I'm _not _my dad and I'm _not _my mum," bursts out Neville emphatically and angrily. "I don't know who I am, but it's not Frank or Alice Longbottom."

"I'm sorry," says Sirius quickly. "I remember I hated being compared to my parents, but," he adds thoughtfully, "but I hated _them._ You-you've got a lot to live up to." He stands unsteadily. "My name's been cleared," he says very softly. "I think I'll visit Marlene's grave. I haven't seen her grave in fourteen years."

Neville doesn't ask who Marlene is. He gets a sense that Sirius doesn't want him to know.

Instead he starts chattering, trying to pull Sirius out of himself and into the trivial, day-to-day life of Hogwarts. Stories about how Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup and how Harry "beat the crap out of Malfoy" (this makes Sirius grin proudly) and then, more and more, the stories are things about Harry that no one would even deem important. Nothing embarrassing, just how Harry scratches his nose with his quill whenever he can't think of an answer, or how Harry always forgets a textbook in History of Magic and spends most of Potions trying to convince someone-usually Ron or Neville himself-to help him get it back.

The tiredness in Sirius' eyes seems to lift as Neville tells him the trivial little things, and near the end he responds to the stories by saying, "Sometimes I forget that Harry isn't James."

"James?" asks Neville softly.

"James Potter. He was my best friend in school."

"But he's-"

"Yes," interrupts Sirius shortly, tiredly.

"I'm sorry," says Neville sincerely. "If I knew what it was like to have a best friend I might understand more."

"You don't?"

"It's what's expected. There are five boys in the dorm, and I was always the odd one out."

Sirius' mind flickers back to the fifth boy in the dorm, at the time of the Marauders, a thin boy with the same lonely look in his eyes.

"So was your father," he says quietly.

Suddenly Neville seems interested, alert. Sirius elaborates, tells him how Frank was the brave one but it was Alice, his mother, who had an interest in Herbology (here a little smile curves Neville's face) and how Alice didn't even know she was brave until an opportunity presented itself. How Alice was bullied until about fourth year, when she spent two months in the library learning hexes and sent the five seventh-year Ravenclaws who had been teasing her to the hospital wing.

Neville stares at Sirius as if he held all of the answers to life. "Thank you, thank you so much," he whispers. "Gran never talks about Mum or Dad when they were my age."

Sirius laughs. There is a light in his eyes that hadn't been there when he first sat down next to Neville's bed. "Thank _you._ I need to spend more time with Harry."

"I'm glad to know that. He needs you."

"Technically I'm dead now, so Grimmauld Place got transferred to him because of those ridiculous pure-blood wizarding laws. Not that I mind."

Neville laughs. "You were dead. But now you're not."

"I'm bloody glad for that." Sirius smiles a little tentatively at Neville, and then asks hesitantly, "Would you like to meet up at the Three Broomsticks for a butterbeer when you're feeling better?"

Neville looks up at Sirius, and realizes that he's just made a friend. It feels odd, not being friends with someone who originally pitied you. Harry, Ron, and Hermione used to all look down upon him. He noticed, of course, but they didn't realize that.

"Yeah," says Neville simply. There isn't much else that he needs to say.

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**-The Eclectic Bookworm**


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